David Burrowes: I declare an interest as a criminal defence solicitor.
	I welcome the Bill and want to draw out some nuggets that I believe can, in certain circumstances, be refined to be even more golden. On the whole thrust of the Bill in terms of efficiency and coherency, I welcome and support the single county court and single family court provisions. I particularly draw the Minister’s attention to the jurisdiction issue in relation to the youth court. The Government’s approach is to triage cases into the appropriate courts. The nugget that I particularly welcome is the change giving youth courts the power to grant gang-related injunctions. That is welcome in my constituency and in the borough of Enfield. We were the first north London borough to obtain a gang-related injunction, which led to a 14-month prison sentence. Indeed, the cross-partnership work in the borough has led to a 50% reduction in serious gang crime-related violence.
	However, there needs to be flexibility. We can perhaps go further in making this nugget even more golden when dealing with young offenders. We have seen across courts the value of community justice, having drawn from America the examples of Red Hook and Harlem, and now there is the example of Liverpool as well.
	In our whole approach to community justice we must recognise that when someone comes to court they come with a whole package of concerns that may well go across jurisdictions. That arises particularly when dealing with young offenders, given the need for timely and effective intervention.
	From my experience over the years, I know that young offenders often come with a package of family problems. They might well be the victims of abuse. There will often be parenting issues, and some children who appear before the youth court should be in care. At the very least, they are likely to be vulnerable. The magistrates who deal with them often also sit on the bench of the family division, and they have been expressing their frustration for a number of years that they cannot intervene quickly to enable those young people to get into the family court where appropriate welfare orders can be made. That is what happens in the Scandinavian jurisdictions, and the possibility of it happening here has been mooted by the Government in the past.
	This is not a new issue. I refer hon. Members to the Home Office consultation document produced in March 1997 entitled “Preventing Children Offending”. Paragraph 103 states:
	“Under the law at present, the Youth Court is not able to refer children to the Family Proceedings Court for consideration of a care or supervision order. It is possible that this might be a useful additional power which would enable the Youth Court to deal more effectively with difficult children.”
	We then had an election, and the rest is history. I still believe that that proposal would be welcome, however, and it should be looked into. We have an opportunity to try to get young people into the right jurisdiction. The proposal has also been welcomed recently by the Youth Justice Board, which is very supportive of it. When John Drew, the chief executive, spoke at the board’s annual conference in November, he welcomed the opportunity, in appropriate cases, to get children to where they needed to be, which could well include the family court.
	Another nugget in the Bill is the provision on community penalties. I welcome the proposal to ensure that there will be a punitive element to them. That is appropriate because, when an offence is serious enough to warrant a community penalty, the deprivation of liberty must be implicit in that penalty. That will now be the case. I also welcome the provision to allow the courts to defer sentencing at the pre-sentence report stage in relation to the provision of restorative justice. Fifteen years ago, I was involved in a pilot at Haringey magistrates court in which sentencing was deferred to accommodate restorative justice conferencing. We have been through many such pilots and reviews over the years, and the evidence is clear. It is about time we got on and dealt with this, and I welcome the fact that the Government are now pushing the measure forward. It will be based on the need not only for restorative justice but for quality restorative justice. We need to look at the details to ensure that the right people will be dealing with the provisions, and that the provisions are victim led and carried out to the satisfaction of the victims. That could well lead to a reduction in reoffending.
	The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) mentioned the provisions on fines. I welcome the changes in the Bill. Yes, they may lead to contracting out; “may” is a very important word in legislation. This is not about wholesale privatisation. The ideological
	bent is that we are on the side of the victims, all too many of whom are not receiving the compensation due to them. The financial penalties involved are simply not being paid, which is why we need to pursue all options to ensure that fines can be collected more effectively and quickly, especially in relation to compensation orders. The burden of the collection costs should fall not on the taxpayer but on the offender, and I welcome the fact that that will now happen.
	I also welcome the new offence of drug-driving; it is about time that it was introduced. As a legal practitioner, I have defended many cases that were unable properly to be proven in relation to the impairment caused by an intake of drugs. I have seen the gaps that prevent such cases from being properly proved in court. The Bill provides clarity in that regard. We need to proceed with caution, however, and to ensure that cases are based on evidence and examine the specified levels. This is a complex area in relation to particular opioids and certain other drugs. We need to focus on ensuring clarity in the law, so that we do not allow people on prescribed medication to fall foul of the legislation, when its target is those who are flagrantly taking drugs and going out in a vehicle and causing a menace to others.
	There is a medical defence in the Bill, but that might not be enough when a person is arrested and taken into custody. That person will have had their liberty taken away and will then have to prove their medical evidence in court. We shall have to see how we can deal with such cases proportionately, when we produce the guidance. On sentencing, I note that schedule 18 contains a provision to up the sentence for being unfit to drive owing to drug-taking to the equivalent of the sentence for causing death by dangerous driving.
	I welcome those and other provisions in the Bill, some of which will perhaps receive further refinement in Committee. I am also grateful to the Government for acceding to the wish of Members across the House and in the other place that the term “insulting” be removed from clause 5. That is welcome on the grounds of religious freedom and freedom of speech; it also demonstrates common sense.